Category Archives: health and beauty

You’ve invited your friends over for a “Girl’s Night” next weekend. You’re going to have some food and watch a movie for the millionth time. It’s always fun to see everyone, but do you want to try something different this time? What about getting an airbrush tan?

Airbrush tans are safe alternatives to roasting in the sun or exposing yourself to harmful UV Rays in a tanning bed. You get a beautiful tan in only minutes and it lasts up to ten days! But you don’t have to go OUT to get one. You can bring the tan to you right in your own home.

If you’re in Denver, give SHINE a call and one of our expert technicians will bring a mobile tanning station to your house and give everyone a personalized, amazing tan. It’s great for homecoming parties, bachelorette parties, and plain old get togethers!

If any of your friends are new to tanning, give them these helpful tips before they come over:

Exfoliate at home – use a body scrub or get out that loofah and make sure the top layer of dead skin is scrubbed off your body.

Don’t put on any lotions, sprays, or perfumes before the appointment.

Wear what you’re comfortable in! If that’s a bikini, great. If you’re comfortable going topless, or even nude, go for it! We’ve seen it all and tanned every body type you can imagine.

Afterwards, be sure to stay dry for a few hours while the solution sets in and works its magic. The next morning, be sure to moisturize and keep your skin soft and healthy for as long as you can to lock in that color. When the top layer of your skin sloughs off, the tan will be gone. But the good news is, it’s fast and affordable to get another appointment! 😉

It’s one of those things you probably wonder about for a minute and then never bother to think about again… What IS a tan? How does your body change color like that?

Well, wonder no longer! There are a few different ways your body can tan naturally. The most obvious is, of course, from the sun! Light from the sun reaches earth in three forms: visible light, ultraviolet light, and infrared. That second type, ultraviolet light, is classified into three categories:

1. UVC, which doesn’t affect us because it’s filtered out by the atmosphere before it can get to our skin.

2. UVB, which typically causes damage in the form of sunburn.

3. UVA or black light, which causes tanning.

The problems we associate with sun exposure, such as skin cancer, wrinkles, etc. are mostly caused by harmful UVB rays. Research suggests UVA might have an increasing hand in these things as well, however. Most of the sun’s UV radiation at sea level is of the UVA variety.
UVA can be reflected off of snow or water. Snow actually reflects roughly 90% of UV light, which is why you can get severe sun burns while skiing. Sand reflects up to 20% of UVB too, so at the beach, you’re getting more UV exposure than you would sitting in your backyard. It’s hitting you from above and below! There are certain surfaces that can absorb UV radiation rather than reflect it, such as certain types of glass.

Ultraviolet light in the sun stimulates the production of melanin in our skin. This pigment absorbs UV light, protecting cells from damage. Imagine you put a sponge on top of a piece of paper and slowly dropped beads of water onto it. The sponge would soak the water up before it can ruin the paper. That’s sort of what your melanin does to UV rays. Over time, this protective pigment makes your skin look darker, hence: a tan! Caucasians typically have the least amount of melanin in their skin on a day-to-day basis, but in many other races, there is a continuous melanin production, which causes the skin to remain pigmented and also offers more protection against UV rays on a daily basis.

It’s important to note that all UV rays are potentially dangerous. If you keep dropping water onto that sponge, eventually, it will soak through and damage the paper. That’s fine when we’re talking about metaphorical paper, but not so great when we’re talking about your skin! UV rays can cause deep damage to your cells, which results in painful sunburn at best and fatal skin cancer at worst. It’s important to protect yourself from skin damage by wearing sunscreen when you’re outside. Avoiding direct sunlight is the best way to protect yourself. This really ruins your chance at a tan, though.

There’s one more way that you can get naturally darker skin, however. That’s through DHA. DHA is a non-toxic, organic compound that creates a chemical reaction within the amino acids in the outermost layer of your skin. This reaction does not involve the underlying skin pigmentation, nor does it require exposure to ultraviolet light to initiate the change in color. It is similar to the maillard reaction which occurs in food. It’s a natural, temporary color that looks just like a tan that occurs from melanin. The active ingredient in airbrush tanning is DHA. The color produced in an airbrush tan typically lasts 7-10 days, but it is much safer than roasting yourself in the sun or using a tanning bed.

Happy New Year, Denver! We’ve made it through 2017 and as we embark on this fresh year full of adventures, milestones, challenges, and changes, let’s not forget to stop and spend some time rewarding ourselves.

Year after year, one of the most popular New Years Resolutions is to get back into (or start fresh at) the gym. This is an excellent goal for your body and mind! When you’re thinking about working out, I bet you aren’t thinking about a tan, but you know the old saying “fake it ’til you make it?” Well, it applies here! An airbrush tan is surprisingly slimming. You will not only look healthier with a little color, a good tan will also hide small imperfections such as varicose veins. A great airbrush technician can even give you some shading to give you extra tone and definition. When you look better, you feel better. Looking your best will give you the confidence and motivation to throw on those workout clothes and get out there! Once you’ve been working hard and accomplish your goals, you’ll love how much better your 2018 body looks with a tan, too. Don’t let pale skin wash out your achievements; show off with some color!

Make this year SHINE with a safe, affordable, all natural tan from us. You deserve to look your best all year, and we’re here to help.

Your brand new airbrush tan is so lovable, it’s hard to imagine it would have enemies, but it does. There are things that want to fade it into oblivion, but we’re here to give you the tools to fight for your tan!

The first thing you can do to protect your tan begins before your appointment! Be sure to shave and exfoliate your skin the night before your tan. You want to be sure that top layer of flaky dead skin that we all have is sloughed off to reveal the fresh skin underneath. There are plenty of products available to help you exfoliate, but beware of sugar scrubs or other scrubs on the market which have an oily base. That oil might feel great, but before an airbrush tan, it can coat the skin and make it hard for your tanning solution to permeate. You want to walk into your tanning appointment with clean, DRY skin. Don’t apply any lotions, perfumes, or sprays to your skin before you tan because it can block the tanning solution and you could end up with an uneven or weak tan.

The next enemy your tan will encounter is tight clothing. While airbrush tans dry fairly quickly and don’t stain the way some self-tanning lotions do, you still want to give your tanning solution time to soak into your skin evenly. Skip the skinny jeans and opt for loose clothes on the day of your appointment.

Once you’ve gotten your tan, stay clear of water. For the first 6-8 hours, water is your tan’s enemy. Swimming, showering, even sweating can wash off the solution before it has a chance to properly set. After those first few hours, water lightens up and your tan and water can be friends again. But don’t spend hours in the hot tub if you can help it. Chlorine will be still try to sabotage your tan in large quantities, too. Chlorine dries your skin out and can have a bleaching effect with prolonged contact. So it’s best to avoid chlorine altogether if possible, but if not – be sure to shower it off as soon as you can when you get out of the pool and pat yourself dry.

Dry skin is enemy number one. Once the tan skin on your body starts dying and flaking off, it takes your tan with it. Keep your skin moisturized, but avoid over-saturating it. Opt for a light moisturizer over a thick body butter, and use it whenever you start feeling dried out.

Airbrush tan, spray tan; tomAYto, tomAHto… right? Not exactly. Not all tans are the same! Let’s explore a few different types of tanning…

♦ Spray Tan Booths

Spray tan booths are large booths that you stand in, and the tanning solution sprays out of nozzles and onto your skin. There’s no one there spraying you, you’re on your own. If you accidentally turn your arm the wrong way or clench your legs together in the booth, the spray might not hit you evenly, leaving you with an unnatural looking tan. You need to be extra vigilant in order to get an even tan. You also need to be wary of tanning areas like your underarms or palms of your hand which might look unnatural with a dark bronze color! Booths can also make people feel slightly claustrophobic, so if you feel uneasy in tight spaces, this might not be the method for you.

♦ Self-Tanners

We’ve all seen these, and let’s be honest – most of us have tried at least one variety. They’re cans of spray-on liquid or lotions found everywhere from posh salons to your local drug store, and they promise perfect golden skin in the privacy of your own home. But how well do they work? I’ll be honest, you MIGHT be able to find one that you’ll swear by. But chances are, it will take a lot of time, money, and misery before you do. There are so many different formulas out there, and everyone’s skin is different, so it’s hard to tell which lotions, potions, and sprays will look natural on you. Some are made from dyes that stain your skin and look orange, some are made from other chemicals that might irritate your skin, and some are just plain ineffective. It’s also hard to apply sprays and lotions evenly on yourself, so you might need a friend to help. You might THINK you’ve gotten every inch, but the next day you look in the mirror and there’s that big patch of white skin, or even worse, thick streaks or blotches of dark color! Many at-home products will not only color your skin, but leave stains on your clothes, sheets, and furniture as well, so you’ll need to be careful. As the saying goes, you usually get what you pay for. You’ll get much better results letting a professional handle it. Which leads us to….

♦ Airbrush Tanning

Airbrush tanning is the preferred method for many people, including Hollywood’s biggest celebrities. With an airbrush tan, you’re working with a professional technician who knows how to pick the perfect formula to make each person’s unique skin tone look naturally colored. They will then spray you by hand to ensure that the solution is applied evenly to all areas you want to tan, and eliminate excess spray from getting into areas you DON’T want – like knees, elbows, and underarms! It’s not a dye or stain like other self-tanning products. The active ingredient is something called DHA which is an organic compound that safely and naturally causes a tanning reaction in the very top layer of your skin. Airbrush technicians can touch up specific areas to even out skin tone or eliminate tan lines, and can even do things like give definition to thighs and abs. Airbrush tanning won’t leave streaks or stains like most at-home products, and it only requires one application. An airbrush tanning session is a truly personalized experience. You can even have an airbrush artist come to your house! They will bring all the equipment necessary to give you a great tan in the privacy and convenience of your own home.

For an affordable airbrush tan in Denver, Shine salon is the place to go! We can also come to you and we offer special group packages for spa nights, bachelorette parties, weddings, pre-prom, etc. Give us a call to make an appointment and see why airbrush tanning is the best kind of spray tan you can get! (303)-722-4040

No body’s perfect. Everyone has something they’re self-conscious of or wishes they could hide. You’re beautiful and you should embrace your body, with or without your imperfections… but if there were a quick, safe, pain-free way to look healthier, slimmer, and younger for under $50, would you be interested? You might be surprised to learn that an airbrush tan does all this!

These aren’t your mother’s spray tans. Back in the day, people used stains and dyes to color the skin a “tan” color, but it often ended up looking orange and streaky. Today, we use a safe, organic compound called DHA in our airbrush tans instead of artificial colors and dyes. DHA works on the very top layer of your skin and doesn’t penetrate or damage deeper skin cells the way that tanning beds can. It creates a tan in a natural way and is approved by the FDA. Our products are vegan and cruelty-free so you can feel as good as you look.

Our technicians are specially trained and know which formulas will look best with your unique skin tone. We will apply it evenly over your body so that it won’t look blotchy or unnatural in any areas. We can even contour the application to make you look thinner, have bigger cleavage, and even have more toned muscles. We can even out your skin tone and do wonders to hide varicose veins, age spots, cellulite, scars and stretch marks. It’s incredible what some well-placed color can do.

Pale skin washes you out and can leave you looking frail and sunken-in. A little color livens you up and leaves you looking younger and healthier in minutes.

Time to see what an amazing make-over it can be – Make an appointment today!